Desktop computers normally contain a metal housing, sometimes referred to as a "drive dock", in which the disk drives which serve the computer are mounted. The drives themselves come in a number of standard sizes, which are defined by the vertical dimension of the drive. These sizes include: 86 mm, 42 mm, 28 mm, 27 mm and 25.4 mm. The 86 mm size is sometimes referred to as "full-high", the 42 mm size is "half-high", and the 28 mm, 27 mm, and 25.4 mm sizes as "third-high".
Disk drives are mounted in several ways. The simplest way is simply to form holes in the sides of the drive dock and insert metal screws through these holes into threaded holes which are tapped into the sides of the disk drive. These latter holes are formed in pairs on either side of the disk drive, and they are positioned at locations which are standardized in the industry. A disadvantage of this method is that, because of the close proximity of other components inside the computer, the entire drive dock normally must be removed in order to loosen the mounting screws and remove or change the disk drives. Moreover, since the screw holes tapped in the sides of the disk drive are not spaced at a uniform distance from the front of the drive on the different sizes, the front faces of the drives may not line up properly if they are mounted in this manner.
Moreover, previous mounting arrangements are generally limited in their ability to accommodate disk drives of more than one size, including the three different sizes in the "third-high" category.
Accordingly, it would be very useful to provide a mounting arrangement which allows drives of different sizes to be mounted in a drive dock, which allows the drives to be removed from the drive dock without removing the latter from the computer, and which assures that the faces of a plurality of drives are lined up properly when mounted in the drive dock.